NYT: Huge Charter School, Run by Corbett's Largest Donor, Flagged for Cheating on standardized tests [View All]

[JPZenger]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/education/01winerip.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

New article in New York Times about Phila. non-profit that publicly revealed what the PA. State already knew and were keeping secret - that massive cheating was occurring by school officials on standardized tests.

Excerpt:

"Chester Community Charter, one of the state’s biggest schools, with 2,700 students, was among those most often flagged for suspicious erasure results. It also was flagged for questionable test scores: in 2009, 65.4 percent of eighth graders were proficient in math, compared with 22 percent the year before...

Mr. Tomalis, the education secretary, says Gov. Tom Corbett “has been adamant about making sure that we make every effort” to respond “aggressively on these issues.”

The governor will be tested. Chester Community Charter School, which was heavily flagged in the 2009 study for “aberrant” erasures and test scores, is operated by Vahan Gureghian. Mr. Gureghian was the largest individual contributor to the governor’s election campaign last fall, giving more than $300,000.

In April the governor visited Mr. Gureghian’s charter, praising it as a model “that needs to be reported to all the people of Pennsylvania,”